Radney Foster channels Woody Guthrie in 'All That I Require,' due at Beachland

Updated December 9, 2016 at 1:37 PM;Posted December 5, 2016 at 8:00 AM

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Radney Foster, whose music usually has a social bent but rarely dips into the realm of politics, was led to write "All That I Require'' by the vitriolic rhetoric of the recent presidential campaign. Foster returns to Northeast Ohio with a Friday, Dec. 9, gig at Beachland Ballroom.
(Marshall Foster)

Radney Foster, the singing poet who visits Beachland Ballroom on Friday, Dec. 9, has his go-to guy for inspiration. That would be Woody Guthrie, the singer-songwriter-folkie-activist who made his name as a champion for the common people.

Hence, WWWD, or What Would Woody Do?

That's why Foster had to record a single, "All That I Require,'' after listening to the amped-up rhetoric that preceded the November presidential election. Interviewed prior to Donald Trump's win over Hillary Clinton, Foster explained the birth of the song, which talks about the echoes of another, darker era, one eerily similar to the just-completed election season.

"Actually, was reading an anthropologist's article and he was talking about the voices of fascism and that kind of political mess,'' said Foster in a call from his Nashville-area home. "I'm not sure there's another way to put it.''

The gist of the anthropologist's essay was that old axiom, that those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

"I was really [angry] in particular about the religious caste that had invaded our country because it's completely unconstitutional, so I was ready to write something that was all firebrand,'' he said.

"I started thinking, literally, 'What would Woody do?' '' he said. "I started researching all the slogans by Mussolini, Stalin and Hitler in the 1930s.

"I strung those together, and anyplace I heard, this is what is coming out of the mouths of people right now,'' said Foster.

The song, simple with just Foster singing into a couple of off-camera microphones as he finger-picks on an acoustic guitar, is about as stark and frightening as the archival footage of Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin as well as stock footage of Syrian refugees featured in the video.

But it's not a one-and-done thing, even though the election is history.

"I wanted it to stand the test of time,'' said Foster. "This is not the last time we're going to deal with this. It keeps coming back around.

"That anthropologist's article was about how we destroy ourselves every 50 years or so,'' he said.

The song will be part of his next record, which is a poignant start to the follow-up to 2014's "Everything I Should Have Said.'' That record itself was a plea to put an end to the upward spiral of meanness that's become so prevalent in this country, even before the election. Its most telling tune, "Not in My House,'' was born of the bullying his daughter received in school, and a warning to those who were doing it.

Even before Trump's win, Foster said he knew he will take some heat for "All That I Require.''

"Most will start yelling at me like I'm some godless leftist, and say I'm blaming the right,'' he said. But he urged those who criticize to "go back and listen to the song.''

"I'll be honest that I hear the voices of fascism and racism on both sides of the fence,'' he said. "I think Mr. Trump is leading the pack, but then you hear people on the left screaming things that would get my mouth washed out with soap in kindergarten.

"There's nothing but name-calling, and that's gonna lead to pushing and shoving in the background,'' he said.

In that regard, the song - like his beautiful "Angel Flight,'' which talks about a pilot ferrying home the bodies of fallen servicemen - fits his criteria: It makes you think, and it will have meaning that lasts longer than the typical three-and-a-half-minute tune on the radio.

So he surrenders to the songwriter muse - who isn't always kind, coming at odd hours of the night, and literally forcing him to write things that can make him or others uncomfortable. But always with the idea of making things better.

Bad things may happen, and the world may go sideways, but in true Woody Guthrie spirit, Foster is determined that it won't be because one songwriter remained silent.